Creative Corner

Welcome to our membership creative corner where we showcase your talent.

If you'd like to submit your own work then please email us at membership@rethink.org - we'd love to add yours to the collection!

This section is open to members. If you're not a member but want to join our community and send your work, you can find out more about membership and sign up here.

Pringle Award Nomination 2025: Donna Jeans "Water lilies, a moment of serenity in Monet's style, reflecting resilience and ripples a willow branch of empathy and community in a splash of tranquillity."

Pringle Award Nomination 2025: Barbara Hulme "SOLIDARITY - WELFARE NOT WARFARE"

NFK — Pringle Award Nomination 2025: Nikki Foster-Kruczek "My assistance dog Rosy and her sister Missy meeting at TENT, a wellbeing cafe near where I live."

Pringle Award Nomination 2025: Rethink Sangam Group "The Unity Tree"

MP 1 — Pringle Award Nomination 2025: Madeleine Pickett

Tf Art Award Winner — Pringle Award Winner 2025: Tony Fisher

Poems and Stories

Community flourishing in garden of hope 

Sunflowers dancing  

 

Together we can do great things a community, 

flourishing in solidarity and kindness  

embracing simplicity openness solitude  

Sunflowers dancing in grace pinks yellow oranges as a painter reaching out and serenity  

Observing nature, dew drops falling 

at Dawn 

Crying tears of sadness  

a symphony  

ready to envision the imagery  

 

The creative soil is life and hope 

the roots of the tree 

strength steadfast unmovable positivity  

Sunflowers  

Golden hue 

 

Let us move forward in surroundings  

Happiness, beauty, tranquility and peacefulness  

 

I can only gaze at the millions of stars 

In the sky  

Carrying community to a tune a song a drum beat  

a community centered with inner peace  

Let us find joy in the flowers 

melodies  

a blue moon orbiting  

a butterfly nature's miracle  

In fields of transient breezes  

 

Community a heart of love  

Manifesting desires a new 
It hit me from nowhere like a train. 

The unwanted return of dreaded psychosis. 

It was wrecking havoc on my poor brain. 

I was being defeated by this mental illness. 

Always angry without being able to explain. 

My loved ones felt really sad and helpless. 

Remembering this brings me so much pain. 

This relapse lasted for many difficult months. 

Felt like I couldn’t stop being this insane. 

I was lucky my support network stayed strong. 

Family, partner, and friends that would always remain. 

Then finally, they found the right formula to get me stable. 

Medication that allowed my health to regain. 

I am now determined to prevent another relapse. 

Protecting my wellbeing is the new aim. 

But also helping others who can relate. 

So that they don’t have to go through the same. 

Be sure to accept help from a mate. 

Be kind to yourself and don’t take all the blame. 

The path of recovery is not always straight. 

But eventually, you will thrive once again.
Deep down in my heart

I will always know

We will never be apart

Wherever we go

I loved you from the start

From the first day that we met

Your smile melted my heart

That’s a day I’ll never forget

You’ve stuck by me through thick and thin

Sometimes that is hard to believe

You taught me how to smile again

So your love is greatly received

I know we’ll be together forever

Until the last day that I live

And even when we’re up above

It’s only to you my love I’ll give
Today everything felt serendipitous.

I just met a couple who were splendiferous.

Ladyewell, near Preston a Holy Shrine.

I met a couple who gladden my mind.

We held so much in common, places and jobs.

All we said we never sobbed.

John Main and meditation, were at the heart.

Something, I’ve missed from the very start.

Buddhist mediation, I loved to do!

But something stopped me I’m sure you knew!!

Delusion and fear, were at the root.

But meditation I loved and missed such a precious fruit.

I nearly converted back, to my old practice.

But something prevented me the fact is.

Now, I meditate twice daily.

Morning and evening for 30 minutes, gaily.

I practice without failing.

It is an antidote for my ailing.

The highlight of my day, to sit still and quiet.

Wishing it would affect my weight and diet!
Down, down, down I fall

Into a place that’s dark and cold

Where a raging tempest engulfs me

And morbid thoughts unfold

Pain, acute pain I feel

As deep as the deepest well

A paralysing cloud descends

I’m lost beneath its spell

Where, oh where am I now

So far from the life I know

A pathetic, lifeless, joyless soul

Is all I have to show

Sleep, yet more sleep I crave

A refuge from this storm

But dark thoughts are relentless

Convincing in their form

Please, please take me away

From the current’s drag and tow

And tell this voice within my head

It’s time to let me go
Thank you to the Rethinkers, I’ll always remember you.

You published my words on Shree Mataji and Sahaja Yoga.

You let me tell you about the painful symptoms of illness.

I’ll never forget the members’ days and the speakers.

There was the professor with the orchestra of coughers.

It’s better to laugh than cry. Could you even die of it?

Sahaja Yoga keeps me happier, it is like a lifeline.

Life is so oppressive. There is the coughing, a whole game.

From disgusted to malicious, from deprecating to reproachful.

Books help describe and engage with the symptoms.

My guilt nags at me, my failure rankles, my frustration gnaws.

I've felt vulnerable to the sound of traffic as well as coughing.

I've felt weak to the point of buckling under TV surveillance.

The “psychs” ought to be the ones under close observation.

As for voices and letters and communications, mental processes,

“God spoke to you by so many voices…” is a great relieving line.

Telepathy features in Sahaja Yoga books, people can write.

I live for the breakthrough, Shree Mataji’s vision coming true on earth,

Shree Mataji’s pictures and words and talks made available.
A. 2008- A POST-REDUNDANCY COMMUNITY INSIDER.

I wake- no job! and after all those years!

I  still feel sad, but now shed far less tears.

No breakfast, please. Black coffee’s all I need

besides a book, but little will I read.

Some things misplaced. I search and then I find.

At last I'm in a better state of mind.

Then soon go out and have an active day.

Depressed no more. Confusion kept at bay.

The good moods do not last. I wish they would.

A sense of purpose reigns. And that's all good.

B. 2025- COMMUNITY OUTSIDER TRYING TO GET IN.

Am older than I'd like. Depressed. "Why bother NOW?"

Inertia, non-enjoyment felt. "I failed"- regrets as well,

the main ingredients of a life of utter hell.

But later moods improve. I liven up, may not know how.

C. COMMUNITY OF 1825.

Would not at first enjoy my home or streets at night,

for I have long relied on bright electric light.

Would water be all right? I wouldn't feel too sure.

Supposing I fell ill, there might well be no cure.

I might not like the food, and feel I'd rather starve

which wouldn't do much good although my weight might halve.

Accused of  theft I'd be a total nervous wreck.

A guilty verdict then, a noose around my neck.

A 999-LESS COMMUNITY  ( THEY CALL IT PROGRESS. )

Whatever state you might be in, an ambulance may not arrive,

And people put out fires themselves. They're lucky they are still alive.

"You found a body? Jolly good. Now please inform Police Online.

Download our Help App. Make some tea."

SURVIVALS NOW IN SHARP DECLINE!!
What is community,  I do not know

Ostracised by my mother as a toddler

And bullied at school

Where was community? It was nothing at all.

Growing up in a village where hatred existed

"Go back to where you came from!" 

Was often resisted.

At school I was always the outsider, neither liked or disliked my fellow students could never decide 

The pain and loneliness I felt could not be described.

The community for me did not exist, painful to my soul and still makes me sad at the lost opportunities and lost communities.

In my adult life work was a struggle

With cliques and whispers made my life hell

Thank God for my neighbours who made my life worthwhile

The community of neighbours cannot be taken for granted

But while the community is there it is very much wanted.

I discovered Rethink Art Group when I was at my lowest

Five years of violence and abuse had left me a shell of myself

I colour in cats in colouring books while I have the support of my art community

Without whom I am left adrift for an eternity.

Community comes in many connotations 

Sometimes friends and neighbours take the place of relations, kinship not by blood

My friends at Rethink have made me feel like I am part of the 'hood.'

As I sit on the sidelines wondering what has happened and why I now look in from the outside

I know the truth will out and hopefully I may rejoin my community 

And continue the love, fun and laughter

After all don't we all deserve to belong, in a community that means so much

My safe space, my safe place

I really hope to be back in no time at all,

My community, my all.
There’s a reason we work together

There’s a reason we beat the same drum

We achieve more together

And more easily get things done.

By valuing each other

And embracing what each brings

We can overcome the barriers

And take on the bigger things.

All battlefields are filled with unity

No one stands alone

Simply side by side creating oneness

Leading each other home.
Here we gather

Birds of a feather

Calling for more of our kind

In parish halls

In backrooms

We erect

Our church of the poisoned and beautiful

mind.

We don’t worship or pray

There is no judgment day

Just “take it a day at a time”

We give ourselves

Grace

A name, and a place.

Here we congregate

Relate

Then separate.

We reconvene

Monthly, we bleed

In relief, shameless

We say: “I am so ashamed”

We answer: “You don’t need to be”

If someone cries, we give them tea

and biscuits.

The biscuits are transformed to endless

empathy in our ten minute breaks

It’s called The Miracle of Jaffa

Cakes.

Sometimes a new face joins us

“I see some new faces” our leader says

The new face is often young and very

quiet at the start.

We are on our best behaviour

Then. We want them to come back.

They listen and ponder it all in their heart.

Maybe they think: “is this how I end?”

So we say: “it gets better”.

At other times they are old, broken,

words burst from them like it’s the first

time they’ve spoken – they tell us

everything

Just as it is and we say:

“Yes. This is how it is

for us too.

You’ve come to the right place”.

We respect the ground rules of this sacred

space, and when we pass each other on

the street, we speak in code or nod.

We meet, for years

In parish rooms and church halls

God help us.

Till then

We help ourselves